by Rose Rushe
THE mythology of super heroes affects us aeons after the Greek gods ruled OK. We have Transformers (congrats, Jack Reynor, on your Sundance Film Festival award), Bond, Batman and Spiderman thriving in sequels. Appeal is cross generational and we believe almost as much as we indulge. This needy link to a world more epic than our own spinning on 50c informs the backdrop to ‘Beowulf: The Blockbuster’ at Lime Tree Theatre, February 19.
Written and performed by Carlow man Bryan Burroughs, Burroughs took the ‘Acting Excellence’ award at 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and tours with a swathe of commendations and starry reviews.
He fills Arts page in on his one-man bravura in which a young father looks to recover his nine year-old son. It sounds heavy but there is a ton of laughs in the offing and familial love is the bind.
“[The idea of] Beowulf is at least a way a way for the father to start to connect with his son. That’s a dry way of putting it but hopefully when people see the show they will find it engaging”. His boy is reluctant but through the score or so characters whom Burroughs plays, some younger, some older, we arrive at knowledge of the family’s fracture.
The little fellow loves film super heroes “so the Da decides the one way to deal with him is through film imagery”. The actor’s sole prop is a light sabre; a narrator helps with context: “The boy does not know what is happening but we the audience do”.
Bryan Burroughs credits director David Horan with being a terrific dramaturg and writer insistent on clarity between the multiple roles. “He went to great lengths to make sure the audience is within”.
Pell-mell for 70 minutes, we follow this son and Dad, a Carlow bricklayer “and a bright man who did not get to college, has not that education”, and their sabre into the light. Book at www.limethreetheatre.ie
